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Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Mourning Jesus

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zech 12:10)

When we think of Jesus, it's almost always with some positive emotion. We celebrate his birth, follow his life, commemorate his death and rejoice over his resurrection. These things are all great, and we should do them. But when do we take the time to "look upon the one we have pierced" and mourn for him? How often do we rend our hearts at what he had to go through for us so that we could have everlasting life?

I guess you might be thinking: "but Jesus isn't still dead! He conquered the grave!" We're not supposed to mourn Him because he has died, we're supposed to grieve for the fact that he had to die. Zechariah 12:10 says that "they will look upon the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him". Jesus had to die because our sin pierced Him: our pride, our lust, our selfishness, our envy, our hate, our greed.

Isn't that sad? Doesn't that make you want to get out the sackcloth and ashes? That a man who was not just innocent, but completely blameless was bruised, beaten, mocked and crucified for my mess? For your mess? For other people's mess? For our collective mess?

It's like if you're in a class, and you have a perfect 100% (average) in the class, every assignment done perfectly, submitted on time, etc. But the other students in the class half-do the homework, don't show up to class, disrespect the teacher, fail the exams and disrupt every class. But the teacher asks you to take an F in the class in order for the rest of the class to pass the class. It's worse than if there was just a curve so that more people passed: the professor asked you to be brought lower than the rest of the class so that they could move onto the next level. [This is making me sad just typing it!] That's pretty much what Jesus did for us.

Take some quiet time over the next few days (and weeks) to mourn God's only begotten Son, sent down to the world, brought low, so that we could be saved by God's spirit of grace poured out on his people because he loves them. Think about how we still pierce him; mourn the fact that he had to die for us.

2 comments:

I think it's okay and right to rejoice because of what Jesus has done willingly. It's Him showing me grace and because of His love, I rejoice! Sure, I may cry at times but it is because I am blown away at His marvelous grace.

I think your analogy should be if the 100% student went to the teacher and said, "I'll take a F so the others can pass. "

Definitely! It is my greatest source of joy knowing that price that has been paid for my life. But I think it is also appropriate to take the other side, in an attitude of repentance and gratefulness for our renewal.

And I agree with your amendment to the analogy! Of course, like any analogy, it won't hold absolutely true, but it does get the point across.